How to use with systemd ExecReload and ExecStop?

[pukku]

Hi! I'm trying to start up a service on CentOS 8, which means that I need to use a SystemD .service file. According to the documentation, if you try use something like kill -HUP $MAINPID to restart a service (or -QUIT to end it), it will not work properly because SystemD wants something synchronous, which kill is not.

Is there any proper solution to this? I can, of course, just leave these out, and SystemD will kill all the processes (possibly with prejudice) for me, but if there is a way to make this work nicely, I would be happier.

Thanks,
Ricky

[cwallacetlc]

I've been using kill -HUP $MAINPID to reload Starman in a SystemD service for several years, and haven't noticed any issues.

An alternative for sending QUIT, would be to set KillSignal=QUIT in the [Service] section. I haven't tried that, because I need to use ExecStop to do more than just send the signal, so my last ExecStop is this:

ExecStop=sh -c "/bin/kill -QUIT $MAINPID; while /bin/kill -0 $MAINPID 2>/dev/null; do sleep 1; done"

It seems to work just fine!